Bengaluru, 26 Nov 2020: The first round of the MRF Mogrip fmsci Indian National Rally Championship for two-wheelers will begin the 2020 calendar at Puttur in Dakshina Kannada district on November 28 and 29.

A total number of 67 entries were received at the regular close of entries time on Nov 23 with only 8 more slots left for late entries (till Friday) as the organisers, Ace Events, restricted the number of bikes to 75 for safety and logistics convenience. Promoted by God Speed Racing of Pune, under the able guidance of former 7-time National champion, Shyam Kothari, the rally offers two Special Stages, a 9.7-km Karkala stage and 9.43-km Palangaya stage, which are run three times each on Sunday, making it six Special Stages for a total stage distance of 57.39km and along with 58.2km of transport, the first-round covers 115.59km.

TVS Racing is expected to dominate the proceedings once again in the top class but the huge number of privateers will make their presence in many other classes. Defending champion Rajendra RE in the Group A Pro-Expert SuperBike class is expected to spearhead the TVS Racing challenge once again but the other Group A class Super Bike (expert) is likely to witness stiff competition with reigning champion Jatin Jain having to deal with the likes of strong contenders Badal Doshi of Mumbai and Bengaluru's Vishwas SD in this class. Last year, Rajendra began with a bang and won all the first three rounds before missing the fourth round at Coimbatore as Team TVS Racing pulled out, but one more win at Mangalore in the 5th round sealed the championship for him with 100 points and he did not take part in the last round, the K1000 in Bengaluru.

The Ladies class with Open Indian Motorcycles will see the presence of Aishwarya PM, the 2019 champion along with Ryhana Bee, who is fresh from the Sprint Nationals, where is she is leading the title race, and Dimpy.

Rajendra, the defending champ in the top class.

Many riders like Sachin D, Suhail Ahmed, Sudeep Kottary and Sinan Francis have taken part in the Sprint Nationals to gain some valuable bike time on similar terrain and have won podium places. All of them will be raring to go in their respective classes.

Aakash Aithal will be the Clerk of the Course with the current Indian Rally Champion of four wheelers Chetan Shivaram, being the Assistant CoC. His co-driver Dilip Sharan is the CRO. Bhaskar Gupta of Karnataka Motor Sports Club is the Chief Steward. Chidananda NC and D Uday Kumar are the other stewards while Yogesh Kalro is nomiated as Technical Delegate.

You can watch a video produced by autotrack.ind.in for MRF Racing of last year's action here.

INRC 2-W final Championship table 2019:

Class 1: Superbike (Pro-Expert):

1. Rajendra RE, TVS Racing, 100

2. R Nataraj, TVS Racing, 51

3. Nikhil Balakrishna, Privateer, 36

Class 1A: Superbike (Expert):

1. Jatain Jain, 101

2. Badal S Doshi, 65

3. Venu Ramesh Kumar, 33

Class 2 - Super Sport 130:

1. M Srikanth, 95

2. Azeeb Mohammed, 86

3. Santhosh Kour, 53

Class 3: Super Sport 165:

1. Ishan Chandra, 126

2. Francis PV, 90

3. Akshay Siddharamaaiyah, 53

Class 4: Super Sport 260:

1. Imran Pasha, TVS Racing, 118,

2. Samuel Jacob, TVS Racing, 91

3. Sachin D, TVS Racing, 90

Class 5: Super Sport 400:

1. Sudeep Kottary, 118

2. Vikram K, 58,

3. Shivan Wani, 48

Class 6: Super Sport 550:

1. Suhail Ahmed, 125

2. Arun Joy, 66

3. Devraj Venkatesh, 59

Class 7: S0 to S3 Scooters upto 210cc (S0 to S3):

1. Syed Asif Ali, TVS Racing, 143

2. Shamim Khan, TVS Racing, 102

3. Pinkesh Thakkar, TVS Racing, 93

Class 8 - Ladies Class: Ladies Class (Open Indian Motorcycles):

1. Aishwarya Pissay, TVS Racing, 150

2. Ryhana Bee, 48

3. Fazeela, 36.

ends